138 THE EDITOR'S ALPHABET OF GARDENING. 



tendon to birds. In our present state of knowledge, this is the only 

 method of arranging birds that can well be resorted to ; the different 

 systems that have been advanced agreeing generally in the principle 

 of small divisions, but differing as to the terms by which such divi- 

 sions are to be distinguished. It may indeed be generally observed, 

 that the most strenuous supporters of the old system are usually 

 those persons whose acquaintance with the productions of nature 

 was derived more from dry museum specimens, than from the ob- 

 servation of living nature ; and it is also not unworthy of remark, 

 that several of our most eminent naturalists, who in their earlier pro- 

 ductions advocated the old system of classification, now perceive the 

 absolute necessity of dividing birds into smaller and more natural 

 genera. 



Tooting, Surrey, February. 



THE EDITOR ON SCIENTIFIC GARDENING.* 

 IT is the design of the little work, whose title is given in the note, 

 to explain what may be termed the philosophy of gardening, in the 

 plainest language that can be selected, while the technical terms are 

 thrown to the bottom of the page, so as not to impede the progress 

 of beginners, who are presumed to be ignorant thereof. An extract 

 from the work itself, however, will show the method pursued, better 

 than any detail we could introduce. 



" SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES OF GRAFTING. 



" WHEN the finger is cut with a knife, soon after the blood vessels contract 

 their cut extremities into an opening so narrow, that the thicker and red- 

 coloured part ^ of the blood cannot pass, and the bleeding therefore ceases. 

 But even then there oozes out the thinner watery partj of the blood, consisting 

 chiefly of matter the same or similar to the white of an egg, which being thus 

 separated from the rest of the blood, thickens by the heat of the body, as the 

 white of an egg does by boiling. If the lips of the finger-cut accordingly be 

 kept close together by sticking-plaster, they will become united by means of 

 this natural glue, as it may be termed, in little more than a day. Upon the 

 same principle, when I was a student of medicine, I once succeeded, as others 

 have done, in managing to unite the whole tip joint of a finger which a boy had 

 had chopped off by machinery ; and experiments have been successful in caus- 

 ing the spur of a cock to unite and grow upon his comb. 



* " Alphabet of Scientific Gardening," by J. Rennie, A.M. 12mo. London, 

 1833. With numerous engravings on wood. 



t " In Latin, Crassamentum." t " In Latin, Serum." 



" Technically, By the First Intention." 



